The latest trend in pro-abortion thinking

Basing it on the brain is not arbitrary at all. As ridiculous as the bold sounds to you, that is exactly what you get when you claim "sperm and unfertilized eggs"? Kill it who cares. Yet the precise second when the sperm infiltrates the egg killing it would then instantaneously become illegal. Picking this point along human development is no less arbitrary than picking birth.

The difference is that there is nothing to kill before conception, except for the father's gamete (sperm) and the mother's gamete (egg), and those are completely separate entities from the organism that comes into existence at the precise moment of conception (the same organism who will normally become an embryo, fetus, adolescent, and so on, until his or her death). The sperm contains only the man's DNA, and the egg contains only the woman's DNA. The organism (person) who comes into existence at conception is not, biologically speaking, a mere "continuation" of the development of either the sperm or the egg; he or she is a completely distinct entity whose genesis can be traced to an exact moment in time (i.e., conception).

hunter_gohan posted...

Common? Common? Now granted if this is true that's a bit messed up and they should tighten up those laws, but either you don't know what common is or you've fallen under the pro-life spell that tries to paint all abortions as late term abortions. 0.7% of abortions in Canada in 2003 were done over 20 weeks. 1% in England and Wales in 2005. 0.56% in New Zealand 2003, 0.20% in Norway over 21 weeks in 2005. 1.6% over week 18 in Scotland 2005, 0.8% over week 18 in Sweden 2005, and 1.4% at or over 21 weeks in the USA 2003.

That's not common; that's ultra rare. It's even rarer than Mythic Rare. I just checked. M:TG's Return to Ravnica set has 254 cards total. The Mythic rares take up 5.9% of those cards. The rares take up an additional 21.6% with like 8 pages and 72.5% left to share between the uncommons and commons.

As I stated, late-term abortions are in fact relatively common (I purposefully used the word "relatively" as a qualifier there -- as in, late-term abortions are common, relative to what I perceive to be a misunderstanding among many people that late-term abortions virtually never happen except in the most dire circumstances). The estimated number of late-term abortions (i.e., those performed at 21 weeks or even later) that occur each year in the United States is approximately 18,000. Yes, 18,000 late-term abortions annually:

Indeed, that is a remarkably high number of late-term abortions; and thus they are, perhaps to the surprise of many, relatively common. Now, the point you were trying to establish here is essentially that there are more earlier-term abortions than later-term abortions -- yes, of course that's the case, but when you're dealing with something like late-term abortion (which even many pro-choice folks, I suspect, find akin to murder), it isn't a sufficient rebuttal for one to just say, "well, sure, 18,000 late-term abortions of sometimes-viable babies were performed in a single year in the U.S., but the number of early-term ones is greater!" This matter isn't suited to a debate of comparisons between percentages when the absolute numbers involved are all so tragically high.

But nothing came into existence. They were present and fully alive before this magical event. Complete with human DNA and everything. This is merely another point along the normal stages of human development that you guys love to arbitrarily not include it as. You forgot one of those stages, sperm fertilizing an unfertilized egg. If that single cell in my mother's womb way back when was me, then so was the exact same unfertilized egg and sperm before they combined.

See the first paragraph of my post here, as I feel I've fully addressed these assertions. But to reiterate and summarize, no, the new organism which has formed from conception is not a "continuation" of the life-cycle of the egg or the sperm; those gametes contain only the set of DNA of the woman and the man, respectively, and they are thus entities completely distinct from the unborn child.

hunter_gohan posted...

Actually according to the definition of organism, the baby isn't one until the umbilical cord has been cut.

"In biology, an organism is any contiguous living system (such as animal, fungus, micro-organism, or plant). In at least some form, all types of organisms are capable of response to stimuli, reproduction, growth and development, and maintenance of homeostasis as a stable whole.

An organism may be either unicellular (a single cell) or, as in the case of humans, comprise many trillions of cells grouped into specialized tissues and organs. The term multicellular (many cells) describes any organism made up of more than one cell."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organism

Women and any embryos attached to them are most certainly contiguous. They won't even form the connections necessary to respond to stimuli until week 26. By having reproduction there it seems obvious they're talking about through the entire development of that particular organism. Which in sexual creatures like Humans involves sperm fertilizing an egg. Either baby's aren't organisms until the cord is cut, or sperm and unfertilized eggs are just as much organisms as a fertilized egg is.

Actually, an embryo is indeed an organism according to all these sources and more, even including Wikipedia as you cited (you can find the references by just text-searching "organism," if need be):

Now, as to whether sperm and eggs are "organisms" by themselves, it's debatable, but I would answer that they probably are not. However, even if they are organisms, that has no bearing on any of my arguments, because I've never claimed that all organisms containing human DNA are people; rather, I said that the embryo is merely the *same* organism that will become a fetus, and an adolescent, then later an elderly person, and so forth.

hunter_gohan posted...

ftfy The men are just plain screwed. Even if they do get a woman pregnant they still just committed genocide.

No, because gametes like sperm and eggs aren't people, and no one is claiming them to be.---QUEUE-STOMPER x54:You've got NO CHANCE.The GameFAQs Archive: http://gamefaqsarchive.com

You mean two things which are vital and necessary for the development of a human being? Without that exact unfertilized egg from my mother on that exact month/year and that exact single sperm which infiltrated it, I would be a completely different person. It would not be me. You can't just arbitrarily ignore this and simply think that just because two cells combine into a new single cell means that single cell was me, but the two cells which were necessary to form that, which were also alive, and which are also a stage on the life of a human organism wasn't me.

The fact that one particular sperm and one particular egg played a part in contributing to the biological function that would result in the creation of you doesn't mean that they were you and that you're simply a "higher development" or "continuation" of either of them; you're an entity completely distinct from them. "You" came into existence only when conception occurred, creating an organism that did not exist in any capacity before that moment, and you are that exact same organism today as you were when you came into existence at conception (and as mentioned, this organism -- you -- is biologically distinct from the sperm and egg in question).

Note: I feel that my responses here have also addressed some of the various arguments made in this topic, even though I've ostensibly just been responding to the posts which have specifically addressed something I'd personally said.

TheRunner PD posted...

Brandon seems interesting and reasonable to talk to. If you don't mind, what's you're take on abortions after conception occurring:

1) as a result of rape (let us assume the rape is timely reported)

2) a result of incest (again, timely reported)

3) a danger threatening the mother's life is presented (this can occur at any time)

4) a condition is discovered indicating the child will be born with a debilitating disfigurement or disease (I actually have a difficult time deciding this one myself).

Please keep in mind: The above scenarios do not represent instances of mandatory abortions, but, rather, whether the mother may choose to abort.

Anyone is free to answer, but I'm honestly more interested in engaging Brandon, so please don't take offense if I don't respond.

Aww, shucks... thanks for the kind words; I try to be as reasonable, rational, and nonjudgmental as I can, even when I might disagree with someone (on an issue I admit is extremely complicated -- there are strong arguments on all sides). My answers are in the next post...---QUEUE-STOMPER x54:You've got NO CHANCE.The GameFAQs Archive: http://gamefaqsarchive.com

1. It should be illegal, because it still involves the unjustified killing of a person, even if he or she came into being as a result of a parent's rape. However, I don't think it would necessarily be contradictory for someone else to say abortion should be illegal *except* in that case, because one argument that some people use is that, when it comes to the overwhelming majority of abortions (which do not result from rape), the pregnant mother willingly performed an action (i.e., engaging in consensual sexual-intercourse), for which *the only biological purpose* is the creation of the child she now wishes to have killed (sexual pleasure merely serves as a natural incentive for humans to engage in the reproductive act in question). However, in the case of rape, the woman did not consent to the action (sex) that is biologically intended to result in the creation of the child, and thus she has no obligation to remain pregnant. Now, that is obviously an argument that is going to ruffle a whole bunch of feathers from folks of all persuasions, but it is logically sound. Nevertheless, I just reiterate that I do think abortion should still be illegal in the case of rape.

2. It should still be illegal. See the gist of the above response (whether the incest is consensual is not relevant to me as it pertains to my opinion of the legality of abortion).

3. It should be legal if the mother's life is determined to be endangered and the abortion is determined to be the means by which to save her (note, though, that in most cases, if the mother dies, then the child is going to die as well anyway), but all available efforts should be made to save both lives, when possible.

4. It should still be illegal. Having known people who were born with Down Syndrome and other conditions, I would find it revolting to think about it being legal to kill them in the womb (which it currently is, of course).---QUEUE-STOMPER x54:You've got NO CHANCE.The GameFAQs Archive: http://gamefaqsarchive.com

I propose we change it from "Pro-Life" to "Pro-Birth" because the words and actions of many, so called, pro lifers prove they really don't give a s*** about the child once it is actually born.---This is the Internet; you can't use popularity to prove something is good unless it's something I actually like.

I've told you multiple times with you just ignoring my answer. When you realize why it's wrong to kill us, but perfectly cool to commit genocide against the bacteria on our skin every time we take a shower you'll arrive at the answer I've provided for you multiple times.

By the way children, sleeping people, comatose patients are not sapient (having wisdom). Hell, you could even say stupid people are not sapient, or mentally challenged or neurotic people.

Children are perfectly sapient. Can you have conversations with them? Can they think and and talk about abstract subjective things? Can they lie? Then they're sapient. It doesn't matter if they aren't as intelligent or wise as they'll be when they're in their mid-twenties. There are no degrees of personhood. An adult isn't a person times 5 while a tween is a person x 3 or whatever. They're all people. Including the mentally challenged. Just because they might not be as smart as others doesn't make them any less of a person. Frankly if you can't tell the difference between a sapient being going to bed, and not even having a brain capable of being sentient nevermind sapient then there's really no hope for you.

As for comas, yeah I've already stated once you're in a permanent coma and brain dead the person is dead already. All that's left is the shell.

Wanna know something funny? Even if I agreed none of these were people it wouldn't matter one tiny bit. None of them are violating anybody else's bodily rights to stay alive.

That is incorrect. As I have said multiple times examine the womb. You are playing stupidÖagain.

Perhaps it wouldn't come across so stupid, if you would anwser my damn questions and stop ignoring stuff I say.

"Here take the case of a conjoined twin. There is only one brain present, but that person has a living unique DNAed fraternal twin attached to them that is surviving off their internal organs, but again has no brain. Is it murder to separate them? Are they still two people? You yourself already realize the brain equals the person you just refuse to admit it because it destroys your line in the sand."

Examine the womb ok....two embyros! So I assume you're for the above mentioned person receiving two checks from their employer? If he goes on SS or welfare or something you'd want the government to send 2 checks to the "two" people correct? He should get 2 votes? You want anyone involved in separating them charged with premeditated murder? Or do you recognize that people are our brains and simply refuse to admit it because it destroys your arbitrary line in the sand?

Like I said, and you ignored:

"Please I really would like to hear if there is any other criteria besides the development of the brain that can be consistently applied throughout all these examples in my last two answers(including sperm, unfertilized and fertilized eggs) without resorting to ad hoc bull answers that aren't applicable to all cases"

It is arbitrary. You said a human requires a brain to be a person and you donít know why.

So, you do think my finger is a person?! I know why perfectly well. You would too if you didn't keep completely ignoring large chunks of what I'm saying.---The food that stands on his [Odin's] table he gives to two wolves of his called Geri and Freki. He himself needs no food; wine is for him both drink and meat.

A fact that you continue to ignore is that although an acorn is not far enough in its development to be a tree it is still the same species. Just like a human embryo is still the same species as a human adult. But you believe that an embryo is an organ and that an acorn is an organ.

\

I have never ignored this, nor said what you accuse me of saying at the end. If fact, it's been a part of my argument since post 1. So too are sperm and unfertilized eggs part of the human species. My hair is human, my fingernail's are human, my fingers are human, my arm is human. None of them are people.

A parent can stop giving formula to their infant and she will die. You are missing the point,....

And you're missing the very next words which you ignored after what you quote showing that, even if it does involve "without intervention" that doesn't mean anything. Like you say here without intervention (in actively keeping the baby alive) it will die, so is that the correct thing to do? I mean this "without intervention" wouldn't simply be yet another ad hoc excuse to defend your arbitrary line would it?

....a zygote without intervention will become more like us.

Might, might become "The big difference between might be and [will be]. It is like saying a hospice patient might be dead in a few weeks therefore we should treat him as such."

You've hopped to so many different places defending your arbitrary ad hoc excuses you've arrived at arguing against yourself.

By that logic you could say that an infant or a toddler does not become like us without nurturing. You can apply those parameters all the way up the human developmental ladder.

So again, "A [blank] alone..." is revealed to be yet another ad hoc bull excuse to defend your arbitrary line between the gametes and a fertilized egg.

And if we feed a child with cerebral palsy it might make it to 30.

So another ad hoc bull excuse and arguing against yourself again?

To clarify, you believe that a fetus is an organ?

Umm I'm an organism; you're an organism. Does that make you my organ? Hell it's not like I pasted like 2 paragraphs showing what organism means(and no despite the name it's not a synonym for organ).

Make a guess.

I'm sorry no. Just because your side doesn't mind having a completely arbitrary position doesn't mean I'll join you by simply "mak[ing] a guess."

So it is the forming of the brain that leads up to personhood?

Well the development, but of course it needs to form to develope.. Many things have a brain which aren't people because their brains never developed enough.

I would love to talk Star Trek with you but that is going to have to wait(Data>Spock). You were the one to say that personhood is a process. Didnít you say that?

Agreed (With the Data>Spock :p). Yeah I'm showing you that none of that necessarily matters (the brain would depending on how developed it is.).

If that was possible, he'd still be a person just fine. He'd also be able to get a robot body and run for president again, but that's another discussion....---The food that stands on his [Odin's] table he gives to two wolves of his called Geri and Freki. He himself needs no food; wine is for him both drink and meat.

In humans this requires a working thalamus. The connections of which do not even start forming until week 26 of a pregnancy. I'm arguing from science.

BrandonNC316 posted...

The difference is that there is nothing to kill before conception, except for the father's gamete (sperm) and the mother's gamete (egg),....

Lol, "there's nothing to kill except for that which can be killed."

...and those are completely separate entities from the organism that comes into existence at the precise moment of conception (the same organism who will normally become an embryo, fetus, adolescent, and so on, until his or her death).

That fertilized egg requires a specific unfertilized egg and sperm. Gametes are just as much a part of the normal human development as a fertilized egg is.

The sperm contains only the man's DNA, and the egg contains only the woman's DNA. The organism (person) who comes into existence at conception is not, biologically speaking, a mere "continuation" of the development of either the sperm or the egg;...

So, you're picking up the "unique DNA" argument again basically? See previous posts for refutations of that.

....he or she is a completely distinct entity whose genesis can be traced to an exact moment in time (i.e., conception).

Which definition of distinct does not also apply to the separate gametes? Cause they're distinct as well.

If you go back in time to when the fertilized egg you grew from was first conceived and replaced the previous unfertilized egg and the sperm that infiltrated it with different ones, would you still be here or would a different person have been born?---The food that stands on his [Odin's] table he gives to two wolves of his called Geri and Freki. He himself needs no food; wine is for him both drink and meat.

As I stated, late-term abortions are in fact relatively common (I purposefully used the word "relatively" as a qualifier there -- as in, late-term abortions are common, relative to what I perceive to be a misunderstanding among many people that late-term abortions virtually never happen except in the most dire circumstances).

So relative means "not at all in anyway" now? It's relatively common for priests and pastors to molest children and kidnap babies. Relative to what I perceive to be a misunderstanding among many people that these simply don't happen.

Just because I actually thought the percentage of Mythic Rares would've been lower than 5.9% doesn't make it common. (Seriously, back when I played the rarity above rare only had 4 cards in it. Making it 2.1% of that set, and that's combining two different rarities too. Ultra rare and exclusive rare.)

The simple fact is late term abortions have a lower percent of occurring even than mythic rare things. If you separate the ultra rare and exclusive rare of Death Star II only in Scotland and the USA does late term abortions have a higher percentage.(And the Scotland one started earlier than everyone else for some reason.)

The estimated number of late-term abortions (i.e., those performed at 21 weeks or even later) that occur each year in the United States is approximately 18,000. Yes, 18,000 late-term abortions annually:

That's nice, do you think it means anything? Something can have a high number, yet still be mythic rare.

Indeed, that is a remarkably high number of late-term abortions; and thus they are, perhaps to the surprise of many, relatively common.

Which constitutes 1.49% of abortions if you use the lowest number on the first bullet point here:http://www.abort73.com/abortion_facts/us_abortion_statistics/

This matter isn't suited to a debate of comparisons between percentages when the absolute numbers involved are all so tragically high.

I just think it's insanely deceptive to refer to something so rare as common. Even "relatively common" without pointing out that still make it insanely rare. You may think that's too high a number, but with just a single ejaculation from a single man more sperm are killed than there have been abortions in the US since '73.

See the first paragraph of my post here, as I feel I've fully addressed these assertions.

Unique DNA?

But to reiterate and summarize, no, the new organism which has formed from conception is not a "continuation" of the life-cycle of the egg or the sperm; those gametes contain only the set of DNA of the woman and the man, respectively, and they are thus entities completely distinct from the unborn child

lol it's not a continuation? So you are now arguing that if the fertilized egg you grew from formed from two different gametes that originally formed it. It would still eventually result in you? Again you seem to reiterate the already debunked, unique DNA line of reasoning.

Now, as to whether sperm and eggs are "organisms" by themselves, it's debatable, but I would answer that they probably are not.

I'd disagree, but that doesn't really matter considering what you say next.

However, even if they are organisms, that has no bearing on any of my arguments, because I've never claimed that all organisms containing human DNA are people;...

Well I agree with you here certainly.---The food that stands on his [Odin's] table he gives to two wolves of his called Geri and Freki. He himself needs no food; wine is for him both drink and meat.

...rather, I said that the embryo is merely the *same* organism that will become a fetus, and an adolescent, then later an elderly person, and so forth.

If the fertilized egg is a person, then is it possible for one person to become two? And again, this seems to simply be the already debunked unique DNA line.

No, because gametes like sperm and eggs aren't people, and no one is claiming them to be.

Oh, I am(for arguments sake at least) since if you consider a fertilized egg a person there's really no reason not to also consider the gametes people. And no "unique DNA" does not help your case.

The fact that one particular sperm and one particular egg played a part in contributing to the biological function that would result in the creation of you doesn't mean that they were you and that you're simply a "higher development" or "continuation" of either of them; you're an entity completely distinct from them. "You" came into existence only when conception occurred, creating an organism that did not exist in any capacity before that moment, and you are that exact same organism today as you were when you came into existence at conception

The fact that one particular fertilized egg played a part in contributing to the biological function that would result in the creation of you doesn't mean that it was you and that you're simply a "higher development" or "continuation" of it. You're an entity completely distinct from it. "You" came into existence only when your brain developed enough for it to be possible to be a "you". Which created a person that did not exist in any capacity before that moment, and you are that exact same person today as you were when you came into existence at whatever moment that is(a hell of a lot more grown up and mature though :p).

(and as mentioned, this organism -- you -- is biologically distinct from the sperm and egg in question).

And I'd still like to know how this is so without also being true of the fertilized egg that isn't ad hoc or the already debunked unique DNA.

However, I don't think it would necessarily be contradictory for someone else to say abortion should be illegal *except* in that case,...

Not contradictory at all. So long as it's not "it's murder because a fertilized egg is a person" but simply about punishing whores who choose to have sex...which you go on to say...---The food that stands on his [Odin's] table he gives to two wolves of his called Geri and Freki. He himself needs no food; wine is for him both drink and meat.